Product Recovery CD Hangs on T61

I'm trying to restore my T61 to factory condition with the Product Recovery CDs. I boot from and go through the steps with the Rescue and Recovery CD, reboot and when it gets to "Insert Product Recovery Disk 1 into drive D:" I do that and click "OK"

The CD spins briefly then stops. Nothing happens for a long time.

I've tried putting other CDs in at that point and it complains and tells me I need to insert disk 1. I've tried completely erasing the target hard drive with PC doctor and still nothing happens when I get to the Disk 1 step.

The first CD appears to be undamaged. I can read it and copy it with no problems. I have tried a second CD drive in the bay and an external USB CD drive and still can't get past the Disk 1 step.

Is there some way to manually copy the files from the first disk onto the recovery partition and proceed from there?

Re: Product Recovery CD Hangs on T61

Hi Kevin, and welcome to the forum. This problem could be hardware related, or it could simply be a problem with your disc. Without having another disc to try, or even another system to try the discs on, it would be difficult to tell where the problem is. If you had another T61, you could move the harddrive to it, then install on that unit, see if you got the same error, but I'm guessing you probably don't have a pile of these on your desk like I do, so that's probably not an option lol The only other thing I can think of is I may have the same disc you have and could copy it for you... if (and thats a big "if") it's just a bad disc, this would fix it, but I'm not sure if my setup discs are the same or not. If you wanted to try, I'd probably be willing to help you as long as you cover the cost of the disc and the postage.

Re: Product Recovery CD Hangs on T61

Hardware seems ok, both systems booted XP at one point but through a rather unfortunate series of events both copies of XP Pro were trashed and there don't seem to be working recovery partitions on either hard disk.

> If you had another T61,

I actually have two, a 7661-E17 currently running Ubuntu and a 7662-CTO and I've tried the CD R&R process on both and both exhibit the same hangup at Disk 1.

The disks I have now are for XP Pro.

The Rescue & Recovery CD is P/N 43E0987 dated January 2007

The Supplemental Disk is P/N 43T8617

The six Product Recovery CDs are all covered by FRU P/N 44Y2596

I can produce an ISO for each disk and generate a hash with Checksum from Corz.org if anyone has these disks and is willing to compare. Has anyone actually done a succesful restore with this particular set?

Re: Product Recovery CD Hangs on T61

Here's a real long-shot: go copy the CD on some other machine. If it's a marginal burn or pressing there's a chance it will be readable on some other drive, and the copy will work.

Not likely since you see the same problem on two machines.

Sorry I can' t check a hash for you. My T61 product recovery media is a single home-burned DVD.

Z.

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Re: Product Recovery CD Hangs on T61

Thanks for responding. I think I'm good, will mark the thread 'solved' when I can write the solution.

As far as copying the CDs, you will notice that I wrote: " I can read it and copy it with no problems. " and I've tried different CD drives in the bay as well as the two distinct T61s.

As it turns out, I believe that there are internal checks in the data on CDs and it would complain if it were unreadable.

I have a suspicion that:

1) the R&R boot disk doesn't match the 6 product disks

2) the whole distribution was goofed up in some way

3) there is some trap in the software that doesn't like something. I haven't seen any mention of such but there are precedents, for example the select few blessed WiFi radios that you can plug into some ThinkPads without any frutzing around and the unblessed ones that won't work until one undertakes extraordinary measures.

As long as I'm launching useless suggesions: one other odd thing I've heard of is R&R popping up a "shall I continue" window - but doing it behind the current screen. It's hard - or impossible - to notice in the bootable R&R GUI.

One way to spot it is to minimize the main screen when things seem hung - if there is a minimize button.

Good luck,

Z.

The large print: please read the Community Participation Rules before posting. Include as much information as possible: model, machine type, operating system, and a descriptive subject line. Do not include personal information: serial number, telephone number, email address, etc.

The fine print: I do not work for, nor do I speak for Lenovo. Unsolicited private messages will be ignored. ... GeezBlog